


Right Beside You

by LibraryMage



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Autistic Character, Autistic Ezra, Father-Son Relationship, Force Ghosts, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kanan and Ezra are space Jews, Queerplatonic Relationships, Survivor Guilt, ask me how little i care about whether or not kanan would actually be able to come back as a ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:17:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10056353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibraryMage/pseuds/LibraryMage
Summary: After Kanan is killed on a mission, Hera and Ezra are each convinced it's their own fault.(trigger warnings for death, survivor's guilt, and death wishes related to survivor's guilt)





	

“Get down!”

Ezra grabbed Sabine’s arm and dragged her behind a crate, pulling her to the ground seconds before the blaster fire started.  He looked up to see Kanan crouching behind a stack of crates a few feet away.

“They knew we were coming,” Sabine said.  “They set us up.”

It was supposed to be a simple mission.  A shipment of medical supplies was being sent to an Imperial outpost and the three of them had been tasked with stealing the supplies and bringing them back to the base.  It should have been an easy theft, the kind of job they’d run a hundred times, but as soon as they’d arrived, they were ambushed.

Sabine and Ezra looked over the edge of the crate they were hiding behind, trying to get a quick count of how many Stormtroopers they were up against, but they were forced to duck down again under another volley of blaster fire.

“What do you see?” Kanan called to them.

“There’s too many of them,” Ezra said.  “We’re not gonna make it!”

Kanan hesitated for a moment, not liking the decision he was about to make.

“Fall back!” he said.  “You two get back to the _Phantom._   I’ll cover you.”

“Kanan, you can't --”

“Just go!” Kanan said, cutting of Ezra’s protest.  “I’ll be right behind you!”

Kanan stood, igniting his lightsaber and sending blaster fire ricocheting back at the Stormtroopers.

“Come on,” Sabine said, grabbing Ezra’s arm.  The two of them ran toward the _Phantom._   Ezra glanced back over his shoulder and saw Kanan slowly moving backward toward them, blocking an impossible number of shots as he tried to protect his teammates.  Maybe they’d all make it out of here after all.

But as Ezra watched, one of the shots made contact and Kanan doubled over as a blaster bolt struck his chest.

“No!” he shouted as another shot tore through Kanan’s chest, and another, and another.

He vaguely heard Sabine shout his name as he ran back toward Kanan, catching him before he hit the ground.  He heard more shots from behind him and looked up to see Sabine laying down cover fire.

“Come on, Kanan,” he muttered as he began to half-carry, half-drag his master back toward the ship.  “Come on.  You’ll be okay.”

Ezra hauled Kanan onto the _Phantom_ and looked back to see Sabine running toward them.  He stumbled to the controls and powered up the ship.  The second he heard Sabine’s footsteps on board, he took off.  Once they were in hyperspace, he switched on the autopilot and turned back to where he’d left Kanan.

Kanan was slumped against the wall of the ship, his breath coming in slow, shallow gasps.  Sabine knelt beside him, her hands covering one of his wounds, trying in vain to stop the bleeding.  As Ezra knelt beside them, Sabine looked up, her eyes meeting his.  She didn’t need to say what she was thinking.  It was written all over her face.  They weren’t going to reach the base in time.  Kanan wasn’t going to make it.

Kanan slowly covered Sabine’s hands with one of his and took one of Ezra’s hands with the other.

“Either of you hurt?” he asked, struggling to get each word out.

“No,” Sabine said, her voice shaking.  “We’re okay.”

“Good,” Kanan said.  “That’s -- that’s what’s important.”

“Kanan --”

But it was too late.  Kanan had taken one last, shaking breath and just…stopped.  Ezra shifted his grip on Kanan’s hand and felt the pulse in his wrist growing slower and slower until it stopped, too.  Even as he felt it, he couldn’t let himself believe it.  This couldn’t happen, not to Kanan.

He was jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of Sabine trying and failing to hold back her tears.  He let go of Kanan’s hand and wrapped his arms around Sabine, pulling his friend in close.  And that was where they stayed until they emerged from hyperspace, Sabine crying into Ezra’s shoulder, Ezra completely numb, feeling nothing at all.

As the _Phantom_ jolted out of hyperspace, Sabine suddenly pulled away from him.

“We have to tell Hera,” she said, her voice hoarse and shaky.  Ezra nodded and stood up.  He walked to the front of the ship like he was in a trance.  His voice was flat and empty as he gave the name of the ship and their clearance code.  His hands shook as he called up the _Ghost’s_ secure frequency.

 _“Kanan?”_ he heard Hera’s voice say.

“No,” he said.  “It’s me.”

 _“Ezra, what’s wrong?”_ Hera asked, hearing the distress in his voice.

“It’s Kanan,” he said.  “He’s -- he --”

 _“I'll meet you when you land,”_ Hera said.  _“It’ll be okay, Ezra.  However bad it is, he’ll pull through.”_

“Hera, wait,” he said before she could end the transmission.  “He’s -- Kanan’s dead.”

There was silence.

“Hera?”

 _“I’ll meet you when you land,”_ she said again, her voice quieter.  She cut off the call before Ezra could say another word.

Sure enough, Hera was the first one they saw when they stepped off the ship.  Sabine ran to her and threw her arms around the pilot’s shoulders.  Ezra could only stand back and hang his head, unable to look Hera in the eye.  He forced himself to watch as a medic brought Kanan’s body off the ship on a stretcher.  He thought he heard someone speaking to him, asking him a question, but he just shook his head.  He was finally starting to feel it.  His head was spinning and he felt like everything inside him had been scraped out with a knife.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Hera.  He shook his head again.  He thought he managed to choke out the words “I'm sorry,” but he couldn’t be sure.  Then he turned away from her and began to run.

* * *

 

Hours later, Ezra returned to the _Ghost_ and found Hera in the cockpit.  She sat in the pilot’s seat, the copilot’s conspicuously empty.  She was running some kind of diagnostic, not that the ship really needed it, just to have something to do.  She turned around when she heard Ezra’s footsteps behind her.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Are you?” he asked her, deliberately not answering the question.  He didn’t know the answer.

Hera’s shoulder’s slumped.  “I don’t know,” she said.

“Is someone with…” Ezra stopped.  He couldn’t bring himself to say “the body.”  “Is someone with him?”  Someone had to stay with Kanan until they could bury him.

“Sabine,” Hera said.  “She took over for me a couple hours ago.”

“I'm sorry,” Ezra said, suddenly ashamed that he’d run off.  “I should have --”

“It’s okay,” Hera said.  “You can take over for her later.  Or we can find someone else, if you can't do it.”

Ezra stared down at the floor, his arms across his chest, folding in on himself.

“Ezra, if you can't, it’s okay,” Hera said.

And that’s when it all hit Ezra all over again.  Kanan was _dead._   They were standing guard over his _body._   Tomorrow he’d be _buried._   It was all too much.  Ezra’s knees gave out and he sank to the floor under the weight of his own sorrow and guilt.

“I'm sorry, Hera,” he said.  “I'm so sorry.”

Hera slid out of her seat and onto the floor next to Ezra, putting her arms around him and running a hand through his hair as he leaned his head on her shoulder.

“Ezra, this wasn’t your fault,” she said.  “None of it.  And Kanan never would have blamed you.”

She thought she’d cried herself out, but once again she felt tears begin to slid down her face as she held Ezra.

“I miss him, too,” she whispered.  “It’s okay.”

* * *

 

That night, Hera lay in her bunk, her eyes shut, but sleep refusing to come.  The ship felt so empty.  Even emptier than it felt when half the crew was gone on a mission.

_Hera._

Hera felt something deep in her chest, like a heavy weight had been dropped on her.  This had happened when her mother died, too.  She’d thought she’d heard her voice, but it was always someone else speaking or a figment of her own imagination.

_Hera, I'm here._

She didn’t open her eyes.  There had been times she thought she saw her mother, and if she saw Kanan now, she didn’t know if she could handle it.

“I'm sorry, Kanan,” she whispered.  “This shouldn’t have happened.”

_It’s okay.  I'm okay.  This wasn’t your fault._

“If I hadn’t recruited you --”

_Then I’d still be lost, and someone probably would’ve killed me a long time ago.  And instead I got to know you and the kids.  It was all worth it._

Hera steeled herself, slowly opened her eyes, and shut them again almost immediately.  She could see him.  He was there.  Except that he wasn’t, not really.  Either she was dreaming or her grief was making her imagine things.

“You’re not really here,” she muttered, pressing her hands over her eyes.  As much as she wanted to believe that it wasn’t her fault, that she’d somehow made his life better by recruiting him, that he was at peace with his own death, she couldn’t.  She wouldn’t let herself off the hook that easy.  She had brought him into this and now he was gone.

_Hera, it’s me.  I'm here.  Really._

Hera opened her eyes again and he was still there.  But something was off.  It was like she could see through him.  Still, the longer she stared at his face, the more real he seemed.  Could he really still be here somehow, even after death?

“This is impossible,” she said.

 _I know_ , Kanan told her.  _I can't explain it either.  But I'm really here, I swear._

Driven by habit, Hera reached out to touch his hand, but stopped short, knowing she wouldn’t be able to.

“I'm sorry,” she said again.

 _You didn’t get me killed, Hera,_ he said _.  You saved me, and I’ll never forget that.  I love you.  So much._

“I love you,” Hera whispered back.

_I’ll be here, right beside you.  Always._

* * *

 

Ezra sat a few yards beyond the perimeter of the base, hugging his knees against his chest as he stared out into the darkness of the jungle.  This had been Kanan’s spot.  When something was bothering him, or when he just needed to get away, he’d come out here, sit right where Ezra was now, and meditate or listen to the sounds of the new world they’d come to, creating a picture of it in his mind.

Ezra had been sitting with Kanan’s body until about an hour ago, when Zeb had come to take over and tell him to get some sleep.  But he knew he wouldn’t be able to.  He’d begun to wander and, as though his body was on autopilot, he’d somehow ended up here.

As he’d sat with Kanan, he’d been numb again, silently staring into space, not thinking about much of anything.  But now, sitting here, in the exact spot where he had seen Kanan so many times, it was all hitting him yet again.

His mind was consumed by a whirlwind of what-ifs as he thought through everything he could have done differently over the years that could have prevent this.

If he had never joined the crew, if he had never agreed to let Kanan train him, maybe Kanan’s identity would have stayed secret and the Empire wouldn’t have come down so hard on them back on Lothal.  They wouldn’t have had to leave Lothal and join up with the rest of the Rebellion, and Kanan wouldn’t have been in the wrong place and gotten killed for it.

If he had never trusted Maul on Malachor, Kanan wouldn’t have lost his sight, and maybe he would have been better able to defend himself, maybe he would have seen that first bolt coming and been able to avoid it.

If he had been a better student, a better Jedi, just _better_ , maybe Kanan wouldn’t have felt the need to protect him, maybe Kanan wouldn’t have told him to run, and maybe Kanan could have trusted Ezra to be the one covering _him._

If he had just ignored Kanan’s order and not run away, maybe he could have saved Kanan.  Maybe he could have taken the shot for him.  Maybe he could have -- maybe he _should have_ \-- died instead.

_Ezra._

He looked up in the direction of the voice -- _Kanan’s_ voice and he saw him, standing there, just a few feet away.  He looked _off_ somehow, but he was there, _really_ there.  Ezra could feel his presence just as clearly as when he was alive.  The tears Ezra had been suppressing all day couldn’t be held back anymore.

“Kanan,” he said.  “I -- I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I should have --”

 _Ezra,_ Kanan said, kneeling down in front of him.  _This was **not** your fault.  I need you to know that._

Ezra said nothing.  He knew Kanan wanted him to believe that, but there were so many things he could have done differently.  How could Kanan possibly know that some little thing Ezra might have done could’ve saved his life.

 _It wasn’t your fault,_ Kanan said again.  _I don’t blame you for this and I never will._

“It shouldn’t have been you,” Ezra muttered.

 _It shouldn’t have been you, either,_ Kanan said.  _It shouldn’t have been any of us.  But this happened, and if I had to choose between my life and any of yours, I’d choose to die before I let anything happen to any of you._

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the distant calls of animals deep in the jungle.  Then Kanan spoke again.

_You’re my son and I will always love you.  Me being dead can't change that.  I need you to know that, too._

“What are we supposed to do without you?” Ezra asked.  “What am _I_ supposed to do?”

_I’ll always be here, Ezra.  I’ll be right beside you, whenever you need me._

**Author's Note:**

> cultural note for goyim: it's Jewish tradition that someone has to stay with a body from death until burial, which is supposed to happen within one day of death.


End file.
